Letter

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‌He wears his Red Sox cap backwards. He’s somewhere in his fifties with a full head of white hair (unless the cap he never takes off is hiding a bald spot.) He’s got a bit of a Leslie Nielsen/Steve Martin thing going; one of those silver fox assholes. And he definitely is an asshole. She’s a few years younger. Somewhere in her forties. Too much eyeliner and a lot of cleavage showing most times she comes in. She’s a little thicker around the middle than she probably was a few years ago but she’s still an attractive woman. I don’t know either of their names but they both know mine.‌
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‌They drink the same thing: vodka-soda with both lemon and lime. With most drinkers you can gauge their pace after a round or two. Not them. All I need to do is turn my head and walk away to hear him calling after me for another. She’ll wait till I’ve brought him his to order hers, ensuring I have to make another trip down to the other end of the bar. This will go on for hours.‌
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‌I never catch any particulars of their conversation but the tone is often that of argument. Body language indicates she’s taking him to task. But most of their visits aren’t spent drinking or talking. What they do most is make out. This isn’t cute nightcap kissing either. She’s usually off her barstool, between his open legs, sometimes even on his lap. The thing with couples groping each other in public is that it’s usually not pretty. It’s not sexy like it is in the movies. Mostly you just want to look away and pretend they’re not doing it.‌
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‌I’ll wait till they’ve disengaged to check on their drinks, walk away, then inevitably hear, “DMITRY! Another?” It works like a charm.‌
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‌The consensus among all the bartenders is they’re having an affair and meet in bars where nobody knows them. I’ve seen them at both bars I work at and they don’t belong in either. There’s a covert feel to the way they are with each other too. Like they wouldn’t want anybody they know to know they’re together.‌
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‌But that’s all speculation. For all we know they might be a bored married couple who spice up their love life by pretending to have an affair and groping each other in public. What I know for sure is that they don’t leave a tip most of the time, even after drinking for hours. One time, after I’d brought her drink, I reached for the stack of bills in front of him to extract $4 for it, he started near-screaming, “WHOA, CHIEF!” like I was robbing him. I had to explain calmly that I hadn’t yet charged her. That shut him up but he didn’t bother to apologize for raising his voice.‌
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‌ That incident was never mentioned again on subsequent visits, their tipping hardly ever improves; thus I keep assuming the worst about them.‌
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‌ So it goes.‌
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I didn’t know Bernice very well, nor for very long. By the time I moved to Bridgeport at the beginning of 2015 the bar named after her had already been open for nearly fifty years. I felt at home there within a couple weeks of my first visit. Many of the regulars at Bernice’s never met Bernice but her aura was ever-present within the place.

She spent most of her last days in a little room directly behind the bar’s small stage. Passing by while hauling away empties, I often heard TV game-show or daytime talk sounds emanating from there. Every now and then she would come out when I was mopping the floor or stocking the cooler. Even in her housecoat, her eyebrows were always painted and she usually had lipstick on as well. You could tell she was accustomed to men admiring her. She always called me Mr. Coffee because I always brought a cup in to work. I think she knew I was there by its smell.

She liked to keep an eye on things. Steve would get exasperated when she presented him with a list of errands for the bar even as it had been years since she had anything to do with the day-to-day running of the business. His reactions were often those of a boy to a domineering mother. She knew how to push his buttons to the very end. Yet, by giving up his career to run the bar after his father passed, Steve showed her he cared. They took care of each other even as they often seemed each other’s last nerve.

All the time I spent organizing the garage and working at the bar made me feel a bit like part of their family. Like a distant cousin from out of town come to stay for a short spell. The bar wasn’t just a business but also their home, so crossing the threshold through the back door was passing from public to private space.

The only time I ever saw her outside the bar was on Election Day when Steve took her to vote at the police station a couple doors north of the bar. I brought them hot chocolate while they waited. The only other time she left the bar was to go see doctors. A few weeks ago she was admitted to the hospital, had a stroke, then passed away soon after.

I didn’t visit her in the hospital so I never got a chance to say goodbye. I went to the wake, but wakes and funerals are for the living rather than the departed. Her body lying in the open casket near the back wall of the funeral home seemed like an afterthought. Steve remarked how it looked nothing like her.

The bar is open again. I’ll be curious to see what remains of Bernice’s living space. I took one of the many snapshots gathered for her memorial and used it to paint a portrait. It now hangs over the doorway of the kitchen which leads to the back porch. Steve had talked for a long time about converting this room into an office and storage for the bar. Changes come slowly at Bernice’s and no amount of them will wipe away his mother’s presence from this building. Nor should they. This will always be her place. I’m glad I got to know her a little before she passed.

A long time ago, when I was briefly married, my wife and I used to talk about places we’d like to visit. For some reason Vancouver was always near the top of the list. I knew nothing about the place save for an aerial travel magazine type photo which portrayed the place as paradisiacal confluence of sea, skyscrapers, mountains, and blue, puffy-clouded skies.

Sometime last year, my father floated the idea of a cruise to Alaska to mark his 70th birthday the following summer. Both my brothers and their significant others were quickly on board, whereas I wished them bon voyage with no intention of coming along. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less than be stuck on a boat for a week. The one thing that tugged at me a bit was where their ship was departing from.

I decided I’d fly to Vancouver for a few days at the end of June to see them off. They were touring Victoria Island the morning I flew in, so I had the day to myself. Unfortunately, having bartended the night before the 7:30am flight, I was in an unknown city on virtually no sleep. I took the subway in from the airport and wandered around Gastown, trying to get the lay of the land. Thinking I might grab a nap at the Airbnb my folks rented so I’d be awake for their evening arrival, I walked the half hour or so to the highrise we’d be staying in, but was informed via intercom that the apartment wouldn’t be ready till 5pm. I had about four hours to kill. With no energy left and at a loss for any better idea, I lurched around for awhile until I found a movie theater and sat through one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in my life. (Everyone else seems to love it so you’ll have to judge for yourself; I was just grateful for the darkness and air-conditioning.)

In my sleep-deprived stupor I didn’t realize that the Airbnb highrise was literally next door to the theater. I wouldn’t be able to reproduce the roundabout route I took to get there if I tried. But I was at the intercom promptly for the 5pm check-in. Our place was on the 18th floor, had three small bedrooms, no functioning A/C, and decor which had to be seen to be believed. Evidently, our host was a bodybuilding fitness guru who dabbled in porn on the side. Magazines, DVD covers, and other promotional materials featuring his flexing image were prominently displayed throughout. An amateurish triptych of a tiger’s face took up the space above the couch, while a roaring lion painting guarded the folded-down futon I’d be sleeping on. Stickers of roses, fleur-de-lis, and various fauna were affixed haphazardly on the walls of every room. By the time I finished taking it all in, it was time for my family to arrive, so I went downstairs to the lobby to wait.

It was about 7pm and there was a steady stream of humanity in and out of the doors. Many races, ages, and types were represented. A good number were obviously tourists which made me wonder how many of the dwellings in this 21-story tower were devoted to Airbnb and other short-term rental schemes. A doorman showed up while I waited but didn’t even bother greeting arrivers; there was an unspoken understanding that his role was now mostly to look the other way.

The idea of staying overnight among some stranger’s belongings can be a bizarre experience if, like me, you’re not used to it. My folks and my siblings are all much more seasoned travelers so it’s old-hat to them, but even they were taken aback by the unique decor of this place.

The one unassailable feature of the apartment was the floor-to-ceiling windows which afforded spectacular views north and west. Watching the light from sunrise to sunset in that living room over my three-day stay was quite an experience. It felt a bit like being suspended in a glass bubble way up in the sky while the world spun its daily revolutions below. Three days of wandering about Vancouver made me want to spend more time there. Between the amazing variety of contemporary architecture and the care with which so much of it was incorporated into its natural surroundings, my short trip was barely good enough to scratch the surface. To contrast the beauty, there was a visible homeless junkie contingent wandering about. This town isn’t all paradise but a longer visit might reveal a bit of what makes it tick.

It turned out that July 1st was Canada’s 150th birthday and many of the main thoroughfares would be closed. But that night, from our celestial perch, we were able to take in twin sets of fireworks set off to the north and the west which continued for a good 20 minutes.

Vancouver lived up to all my travel brochure ad expectations. I’ll have to come up with a reason to return some day.